The fighting was going on at the head of the lagoon, a little over half a mile from the point where we entered, too far off to see what had been happening. All we could see from that distance was a confused mass of men, and all we heard was a confused shouting. After we had straightened out on the course to the beach, I saw nothing but the backs and the oars of the men before me, Captain Nelson at the steering oar, and the other boats out of the tail of my eye. We were a little in advance. The shouting grew in volume as we approached the {348} shore, but I heard no white man’s shout. They had no breath to waste. We were perhaps an eighth of a mile from shore when Captain Nelson spoke quietly, saying that some twenty of the islanders were swimming out to meet us. “Be ready with your knives and spades, boys,” he said. “Don’t let them get hold of your oars.” The men were not supposed to have knives—at least, not with sharp points, but two or three of the Portuguese produced them, and took them between their teeth; and there were two knives in each boat, and the hatchet. However, we pulled away from them and grounded on the beach. The shock of it very nearly sent me on my back in the bottom of the boat. I saw Captain Nelson covering our landing with his Spencer, and I saw him raise it to his shoulder and fire once. Then we tumbled out, I with my spade and my wagon-spoke. A spear whistled over my shoulder, making a flesh wound, and I gave a roar, and rushed upon the irregular line of islanders. As I ran, I remember vaguely that I laughed and shouted. I have no clear recollection of what happened, but I do know that I had no fear of anything, I had an utter insensibility to pain, and a fierce joy in mere fighting. My wagon-spoke was a more handy weapon than the spade, which I used to ward off blows aimed at me, while I wielded the wagon-spoke as a club. It was a very good club, well-balanced and heavy, with sharp corners on the hub end. I was pretty strong then, and could swing it to some purpose. The natives—I do not like to call them savages—had been armed with spears of hard wood, as dangerous as steel-pointed spears, and with a war-club of peculiar shape, made of ironwood. Most of them had cast their spears by this time, and fought with their clubs, much as I did. I do not know just how many islanders there were, but there must have been well over a hundred altogether. {349} There were eighteen of us, and about twenty in the crew of the Battles; but many of the Battles’ men had been killed or disabled before we got there. There could not have been more than a half a dozen left on their feet. I saw Mr. Wallet transfixed by a spear within six feet of me, the spear in the hands of a gigantic islander. I cannot remember that I felt a pang of pity when I saw Mr. Wallet go down. I do not think that I had any feeling whatever, or that I should have had whoever it had been.